Google's ambitions to make gaming-focused Chromebooks are now coming to fruition.

In a new press release, Google announced that it has partnered with Acer, Asus, and Lenovo to make these gaming-focused Chromebooks designed for cloud gaming subscription services like Nvidia GeForce Now and Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Acer's Chromebook 516 GE features a 120Hz WQXGA display with an anti-ghosting RGB keyboard, WI-Fi 6E connectivity, and force-canceling and DTS speakers. The laptop offers a few configuration options for the RAM (up to 16GB of LPDDR4X), storage (up to 256GB of NVMe SSD), along with two CPU options (Intel Core i5-1240P or i7-1260P). Acer's Chromebook 516 GE starts at $649.99 and will be available at Best Buy.

The Asus Chromebook Vibe CX55 Flip features a 144Hz FHD display, an anti-ghosting keyboard, Wi-Fi 6 connectivity, a 720p camera, and Harmon Kardon-certified dual speakers. Asus notes that you can configure the laptop with up to an Intel Core i7 (11th Gen) CPU, 16GB of LPDDR4X RAM, and 512GB of SSD storage.

Lenovo's IdeaPad Chromebook offers a 120Hz WQXGA display, an RGB anti-ghosting keyboard, 8GB of LPDDR4X RAM, Wi-Fi 6E connectivity, and a four-speaker system with Wave audio tuning. The laptop offers an option to receive either an Intel Core i3 or i5 CPU (both 12th Gen) and includes a few storage options: 128GB of eMMC SSD or M.2 PCIe 2242 in either 256GB or 512GB. Lenovo's IdeaPad Gaming Chromebook will be available sometime this month with a starting MSRP of $599.

The announcement of gaming laptops designed for cloud gaming services comes at an interesting time, as Google recently announced that it would shut down its own cloud gaming service, Stadia, early next year. Additionally, Logitech announced a few weeks ago that it was working on a Wi-Fi-only handheld that is dedicated to cloud gaming and would retail for $350.

While the inclusion of a gaming-centric Chromebook designed more for cloud gaming seems redundant, these may appeal to those who are subscribed and avid cloud gaming players and don't want to spend a ton of cash on laptops built for gaming beyond the cloud.

Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Star Trek: Picard recently unveiled the Odyssey-class USS Enterprise F — a starship originally designed by a fan for the Star Trek Online game.

New York Comic Con 2022's Star Trek Universe panel gave fans a teaser of what's to come in Star Trek: Picard's third and final season. The latest trailer offered more details about the upcoming story while also despatching a new Enterprise into canon, as fans spotted the Odyssey-class USS Enterprise F cruising through a shot at around the 1:51 mark.

If the ship's design seems familiar, that's because it's from the MMO video game Star Trek Online. As Giant Freakin Robot points out, the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-F was initially drawn by a fan called Adam Ilhe as part of a contest held for the game back in 2011. Thomas Marrone recently rebuilt the 3D model that the Picard VFX team then worked into the show.

The trailer also gave fans a new glimpse at the returning crew members of Star Trek: The Next Generation, including the likes of Gates McFadden's Dr. Beverly Crusher, LeVar Burton's Geordi La Forge, Michael Dorn's Worf, Marina Sirtis' Deanna Troi, Brent Spiner's Lore, Daniel Davis' Professor James Moriarty, and Jonathan Frakes' Commander William Riker.

Showrunner Terry Matalas said the forthcoming season of Picard will very much draw inspiration from the film Crimson Tide, with Amanda Plummer playing a key role in the action. She'll be stepping out as Vadic, "a mysterious alien captain of the Shrike, a warship that has set its sights on Jean-Luc Picard and his old crewmates from his days on the Enterprise."

Star Trek: Picard's final season will premiere on February 16, 2023, with new episodes debuting each Thursday. The first two seasons are available to stream right now, but we felt let down by the crew's last adventure. In our Season 2 review, we said it was a "disappointing entry in the legendary captain's journey, and possibly the worst season of Star Trek ever."

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

DICE was forced to turn off Battlefield 2042's The Liquidators limited-time event less than one hour after it went live due to serious bugs.

The event went live on time at 9am UK time but, as of 9:32am, had been taken offline after DICE discovered that its progression system wasn't working.

"We are temporarily disabling The Liquidators mid-season event", the official Battlefield Direct Communication account said on Twitter (below). "We're seeing that the unlock rewards and progress for the event are not tracking correctly, and cannot be equipped when showing as unlocked."

We are temporarily disabling the The Liquidators Mid-Season Event.

We're seeing that the Unlock Rewards and Progress for the Event are not tracking correctly, and cannot be equipped when showing as Unlocked.

We'll follow-up once we're ready to turn the Event back on. pic.twitter.com/XmyyEN9w35

— Battlefield Direct Communication (@BattlefieldComm) October 11, 2022

Those looking to play the event, which adds the Tactical Conquest mode alongside new missions and rewards, seemingly won't have too long to wait, however, as DICE said in a follow-up tweet that it aims to have The Liquidators back online later today.

"We're working to ensure all players can progress towards and receive the unlock rewards for The Liquidators event before we turn it back on," it said.

Battlefield 2042 hasn't had the smoothest first year on the market, only launching its Season 1 in June (seven months after launch) as it was delayed to focus on more pressing issues such as including a scoreboard, but this update was also delayed.

Publisher EA admitted around the same time that Battlefield 2042 did not meet expectations, and soon after a petition asking for refunds started online that more than 230,000 players have now signed. Battlefield 2042's numbers had diminished in the meantime, as in early March it had fewer players on Steam than Battlefield 1, 4, and 5.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.

If you watched last weekend’s episode of House of the Dragon, you’ll know it was full of emotional highs and lows. But one of the episode’s best moments was created entirely by accident.

Spoilers for House of the Dragons Episode 8 below…

According to Entertainment Weekly, the emotional scene where a weakened Viserys is helped to his throne by his estranged brother/son-in-law, Daemon, was an instantly popular scene among the creators of the show, and one that happened by accident during rehearsal.

“When we were shooting that — I think the rehearsal again, the first day — the crown fell off of Paddy’s head and Matt picked it up and we just kept going. We didn’t stop [filming],” says House of the Dragon director Greeta Patel. “There was a discovery there of this moment.”

The original plan was for Matt Smith’s Daemon to deliver a toast at the family dinner later in the episode, but the actors and director felt something special about the crowning scene during rehearsal. So the team shot both Daemon’s speech and the crown scene and decided to cut Daemon’s toast for time, while keeping the improvised shot.

"I was so thankful that accident happened, that the crown fell off because it proved to be, at least for me, quite a heavy moment and quite a turning point for a storyline that had started in the pilot: Hey, I want your crown and by the end here I'm gonna put the crown back on your head and I'm gonna help you to your throne."

House of the Dragon episode 8, “The Lord of the Tides” was all set to be another showdown between the series’ Black faction led by Rhaenyra, and the Green faction led by the Hightower family. But instead, it became the last hurrah for the ailing Viserys who even in the last few episodes did not seem long for Westeros.

But while the tender moment between the brothers would be just one of the warm, familial highlights of episode 8 it did not last as Viserys’ sickness catches up to him by the end of the episode and sets up the civil war we’ve been waiting for to befall House Targaryan.

With two episodes left, the power vacuum is ready to blow. Check out IGN’s review of House of the Dragon episode 8 and analysis of Viserys’ final scene.

Matt T.M. Kim is IGN's News Editor. You can reach him @lawoftd.

Earlier today, Head of Xbox Phil Spencer posted a photo on his personal Twitter account that seemed to be teasing a reveal for the Xbox-branded streaming stick called Project Keystone. However, Microsoft has since confirmed the device seen in the photo is a prototype, and the company has shelved the project, for the time being.

Spencer’s original post was meant to commemorate the Fallout series’ 25th anniversary. While there was plenty of Fallout memorabilia in the accompanying photo, there was also a device on the top shelf that looked like it could be the streaming stick. As speculation started to spread online, the official Xbox Twitter account responded and referred to it as an “old prototype” in the replies.

Vault Boy left the shelter and stopped by my office to celebrate the #Fallout25 Anniversary. Congratulations to the @Fallout @Bethesda teams on this major milestone for an iconic franchise. pic.twitter.com/hGoN1sAQRK

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) October 10, 2022

In the time since, Microsoft released a statement to Digital Trends, which confirmed the device seen in Spencer’s photo is a prototype, and the company has redirected resources to the broader Xbox Cloud Gaming service.

The device on Phil’s shelf was an old prototype of Keystone. Earlier this year, we announced that we made the decision to pivot away from the current iteration of Keystone and are taking our learnings to refocus our efforts on a new approach that will allow us to deliver Xbox Cloud Gaming to more players around the world in the future. We have nothing more to share today.

In the meantime, Xbox Cloud Gaming is part of the Xbox Game Pass Ultimate service, and allows users to stream Xbox games to mobile devices, Smart TVs, and Xbox consoles. While Xbox Cloud Streaming is still part of Microsoft's plans, video game streaming is in a weird place right now as Google is shutting down its Stadia service and uprooting several projects in development for the platform.

Kenneth Shepard is a freelance writer at IGN.

The devastating asteroid strike that killed off the dinosaurs may have triggered a powerful “mega-earthquake'' that shook Earth for months on end.

66 million years ago a massive solar system body — now known as the Chicxulub asteroid — collided with Earth, excavating a massive 180 km (110 mile) wide impact crater in what would later become the Yucatan Peninsula.

This collision triggered a chain of cataclysmic events which, when combined with the devastation caused by the initial strike, wiped out 75 percent of all life on Earth.

Now, fresh research that analyzed geological records from this traumatic period in our planet’s history, has revealed that the devastating impact may have triggered a “mega-earthquake” that lasted for weeks, or even months before subsiding.

The research was presented on October 9. at the Geological Society of America’s annual meeting by Hermann Bermúdez of Montclair State University - one of the scientists who worked on the study.

Back in 2014, Bermúdez discovered a series of minute glass spheres and shards, roughly 1 millimeter in size, buried among the sediment on Gorgonilla Island, which is located off the west coast of Colombia.

These tiny relics were formed on the day that the Chicxulub asteroid struck the surface. The impact threw vast quantities of molten material high into the atmosphere, which subsequently coalesced, cooled, and fell back to Earth as glassy balls and irregular shaped debris.

At the time the asteroid struck, the site Bermúdez had excavated was actually underwater. Despite the fact that it was located some 3,000 km (1,860 miles) from the impact site, the underwater landscape was deformed by the force of the event. Traces of this deformation — which extended 10 - 15 m (30 - 50 ft) underground — are still evident to this day.

Bermúdez and his co-researchers also documented faults, cracks, and evidence of a process called liquefaction — wherein water saturated sediments flow freely like water under the vibrating influence of an earthquake — in Mexico, and the United States.

According to a press release from the Geological Society of America (GSA) outlining the presentation, the earthquake which shook Earth in the wake of the extinction event was roughly 50,000 times more powerful than the magnitude 9.1 earthquake that devastated Sumatra in 2004.

The researchers found that the disruption caused by the shaking extended through the sediment layer from the point at which the asteroid struck, up to where the team found the tiny glass spheres on Gorgonilla Island.

The geological evidence shows that the super-quake must have endured for the weeks, or even months that it would have taken for the impact-ejected debris to descend through the atmosphere, and subsequently the ocean environment, to settle on the seabed.

Just above this layer, the team discovered the spores from ferns, which indicated that the environment had settled enough at this point to allow plant life to re-establish itself.

The damage wrought by the earthquake would have added to the devastation caused by the powerful tsunamis and atmospheric debris circulation brought on by the event.

NASA and its partners recently completed the world’s first planetary defence mission — the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) — during which it crashed a spacecraft into the surface of a distant asteroid in an attempt to alter its orbital trajectory.

The agency hopes that this mission is the first step on the road to developing an effective strategy that could one day save our race — and all life on Earth — from the perils of another potentially devastating asteroid strike.

Be sure to check out IGN’s science page to stay up to date with the biggest and weirdest developments in the world of science.

Anthony Wood is a freelance science writer for IGN

Image credit: Vadim Sadovski

Doc and Marty are back... in the future. Seven years after Back to the Future 2's original vision of the future, the Back to the Future actors reunited at NYCC.

Back to the Future fans witnessed the film’s original stars Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox get together for an emotional reunion at New York Comic Con – appearing together on stage to huge applause.

“The best part of the movie was working with Chris,” said Fox via the New York Post. He went on to call Lloyd a “genius” and said there was immediate chemistry” between them.

Back to the Future costars Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd reunited at NYCC, and it's taking us Back In Time. pic.twitter.com/s6wH4qQVkM

— IGN (@IGN) October 10, 2022

Fox famously joined Back to the Future after production had already begun with Eric Stoltz in the role of Marty McFly.

Fox was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in the late 90s and has since dedicated much of his professional life to raising funds to help combat the illness.

“Parkinson’s is the gift that keeps on taking,” he said via Variety. “But it’s a gift, and I wouldn’t change it for anything. People like Chris have been there a lot for me, and so many of you have. It’s not about what I have, it’s about what I’ve been given — the voice to get this done, and help people out.”

Back to the Future is a fabulous movie. That’s enough right? No, not close. Michael J. Fox has raised over 1.5 Billion for Parkinson’s Research. Remarkable!!! https://t.co/QNJk7ikAqF

— Chad Hartman (@ChadHartmanShow) October 9, 2022

Back to the Future was originally released in 1985 and saw Michael J. Fox become Marty McFly – the down-on-his-luck teen who accidentally travels back in time thanks to his friend Doc’s time machine that happens to be built into a DeLorean.

The Back to the Future trilogy soon become a trio of family classics and are renowned by film fans to this day.

However, a Back to the Future remake is still yet to happen. Thankfully.

Want to read more about Back to the Future? Check out the Back to the Future musical as well as the all-new electric DeLorean.

Ryan Leston is an entertainment journalist and film critic for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Bella Ramsey, who plays the ever-headstrong Ellie in HBO's upcoming The Last of Us adaptation, has revealed that the show's producers requested that she not play the game before filming began. In the spirit of Ellie herself, though, Ramsey didn't play entirely by the rules.

Speaking to USA Today, Ramsey stated that she skirted the line by watching some of the game on YouTube. "I was actually encouraged not to [play the game]," she said. "After my first audition, they asked me, 'Have you played it?' And I said, 'Nope,' and they said, 'Keep it that way.' I did watch some of the gameplay on YouTube just to get a sense of it."

Ramsey also shared a memorable moment that occured between her and co-star Pedro Pascal, who portrays The Last of Us's other main character, Joel.

"But I'm so excited for it to come out," she said. "It was such a big part of my life. I shot for a whole year, which is quite a long time when you've only lived for 19 years. Pedro wrote a little card to me at the end, saying, 'How interesting that something so huge and life-changing should happen so early in your life and so late in mine.' I thought it was a really sweet observation and I just had the best time."

Ramsey rose to popularity after her portrayal of fan-favorite Game of Thrones character Lyanna Mormont, proving that her young age had no impact on her ability to play strong, fierce characters. This seems to have made her a natural fit for Ellie – a character known for her tenacity – and by the looks of the recent teaser trailer for The Last of Us, she's likely already got it in the bag.

The Last of Us show will largely follow Naughty Dog's original game, following Joel and Ellie on a mission across a post-apocalyptic US to deliver her to a group who want to study her immunity to a deadly virus in an attempt to cure it. If you want to catch up on the story before the TV adaptation, there's never been a better time than now, thanks to the recent remake of the game for PS5.

We'll see if the show can match the same heights as the beloved game when The Last of Us airs on HBO in early 2023.

Billy Givens is a freelancer at IGN with over a decade of experience writing gaming, film, and tech content. His work can also be found on GameSpot, USA Today, Digital Trends, Tom's Guide, and more. You'll find him blabbering on about video games and more on Twitter at @mektige.

While we'll have to wait to learn more about two of the newest supes to join Season 4 of The Boys, Prime Video has shared the first looks of Susan Heyward's Sister Sage and Valorie Curry's Firecracker.

Prime Video is waiting until the premiere of The Boys' fourth season to share exactly who these characters are, but the images give us a small glimpse of the two.

Curry has previously starred in Peacock's The Lost Symbol, The Tick, American Pastoral, and 2016's Blair Witch. Heyward has starred in Delilah, Orange is the New Black, Powers, and Vinyl. Both Curry and Heyward also appeared in Fox's The Following.

We don't yet know exactly when The Boys' fourth season will arrive on Prime Video, but the casting announcements for the upcoming season that revealed the additions of Curry and Heyward also confirmed that Cameron Crovetti's Ryan Butcher will become a full-time regular after performing in a recurring role for The Boys' second and third season.

We called The Boys' third season 'Amazing,' and said that it "achieves a balance between impactful storytelling and extreme violence that cements itself as one of the best shows on streaming, no matter year or genre."

Following the finale, we spoke to showrunner Eric Kripke about the latest season and what fans can expect from the upcoming one, including that this is Homelander's world and we're just living in it. While it hasn't been officially confirmed, reports have said that one we can look forward to is The Walking Dead's Jeffrey Dean Morgan joining the cast.

Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

Keanu Reeves has reportedly stepped away from Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese's The Devil in the White City series for Hulu.

As reported by Variety, Reeves will no longer be playing Burnham in the adaptation of the 2003 book by Erik Larson, which was due to be the first major television role of the actor's career.

The Devil in the White City is set in Chicago as Daniel Burnham struggles to create the 1893 World's Fair while serial killer H. H. Holmes (played by DiCaprio) plots to use it as a murder destination. DiCaprio committed to the role way back in 2009, and confirmation that Scorsese would direct came in 2015.

Reeves' participation was first floated much later, however, with talks between the Matrix actor and Hulu reportedly taking place in January 2022. His lead role as Burnham was only confirmed in August, meaning it only took two months for Reeves to call off his first venture onto the small screen.

He still has a lot on his plate, of course, as Reeves was recently confirmed to be returning for the Phantom Liberty expansion of the Cyberpunk 2077 video game. John Wick: Chapter 4 will also see him return as the leading role when it premieres on March 24, 2023.

As for his dream projects, Reeves has expressed interest in joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe and, perhaps more so, wants to play Batman in a live action film.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.